Mumbai Building Collapse Kills 61

Shop Owner Remains in Police Custody

By

Shreya Shah

Sept. 29, 2013 4:09 a.m. ET

MUMBAI—Kavita Madhav Kamble thought it was an earthquake Friday morning when she was shaken awake as the five-story apartment block where she lived caved in, the latest in a series of deadly building collapses in India.

Rescue operations continued in the Indian city of Mumbai on Friday where a five-story building collapsed earlier in the day, sending rescuers racing to reach dozens of people trapped in the rubble.

The death toll in this latest case is 61, fire department and police officials said Sunday, when rescue work came to an end.

About two-thirds of those who were in the building when it collapsed have died. Rescue workers pulled more than 90 people, including the dead, from the rubble after the building collapsed at around 6 a.m. Friday. An officer at the city fire department's control room said the last two survivors were pulled from the rubble at 11:52 p.m. Saturday.
Ashok Thorat,
the police officer investigating the collapse, said the area has been cleared and no more people are trapped.

Ms. Kamble said she and her family were rescued around 12:30 p.m. Friday, more than six hours after the collapse.

Building Collapse

Indian fire officials rescued a child from the debris. Associated Press

"Because my daughter is alive, I am alive. What would life have been without her?" Ms. Kamble said from her metal-frame hospital bed, looking at her 5-year-old child, Bhagyashree, sitting nearby and scribbling on a piece of paper.

Ms. Kamble, who injured her hand, said she and her daughter jumped off the bed they shared just before the walls of their one-bedroom apartment fell on it. Her husband, Madhav, was standing by the bed at the time of the collapse, she said. He suffered minor injuries.

A city government team inspected the building on Aug. 21 and said it was in need of repairs, said Yamini Jadhav, the local representative for Brihanmumbai Municipal Corp., the city council and owner of the building. She didn't say what repairs were needed.

ENLARGE

Indian women react after hearing a relative was found dead inside the collapsed four-story residential building in Mumbai, India, on Saturday.
European Pressphoto Agency

Mr. Thorat, the police officer investigating the collapse, said the owner of a shop on the ground floor of the building in south Mumbai is in custody after BMC filed a complaint alleging he built a mezzanine floor without permission.

The shop owner,
Ashok Kumar Mehta,
has rented the ground floor from BMC since 1998, Mr. Thorat said. Mr. Mehta, who hasn't been charged but will remain in police custody until Tuesday, couldn't be reached for comment.

Mr. Thorat added that the police are also investigating BMC because it was the body's responsibility as the builder and owner to inspect and repair the building.

Ms. Jadhav, an elected official, said she had raised the issue of repairs at BMC meetings last year. "It was the BMC's duty to repair the building and to vacate it if needed," she said.

She added that the municipal corporation will give the families of the deceased 200,000 rupees ($3,200) and pay for the treatment of those in hospital.

Ms. Kamble said residents of the building had told her that they would be moved as repair work was done on the building following a recent inspection, but no work had been started at the time of the collapse.

She added that BMC subsidized the rent on her family's apartment because her husband worked for the council as a garbage collector in the city. The family moved in to the apartment four months ago, Ms. Kamble said.

Diptesh and Anish Kadam lost both their parents in Friday's collapse, but they don't yet know they are dead, a cousin of the boys, ages 16 and 10, said Sunday. "We performed the last rites [Saturday]," but we haven't told the children yet," Sameer Pawar said. He added that the boys' mother was talking to rescue officers in the hours after the collapse, but they lost contact with her at 12:30 p.m. Friday.

Several building collapses this year have occurred in India. The collapses are often blamed on builders using poor-quality materials or failing to get the necessary licenses.

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